


to grow flowers in your flesh

by cloudysunglasses



Series: we need to share our wars [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Chara POV, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 02:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9695879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudysunglasses/pseuds/cloudysunglasses
Summary: Asgore and Chara have a conversation in the garden as Chara recovers from their attempt.Takes place a few weeks after love is not afraid of you. Can be read on its own, but reading the previous fic fills in the blanks





	

Nothing is as easy as anyone hoped.

Not for anyone. Not for Asriel, who you knew hoped you would be well right away, nor for you, who never expected dying to be this difficult. You didn't want to heal, you didn't want to stay alive, but now that the truth was out and Toriel prevents you from eating anymore buttercups, you are, against your wishes, slowly, slowly getting better.

Toriel had already hovered over you as soon as you had “fallen ill”, but now it was like you were never allowed to be alone - and especially not alone with Asriel.

You knew he noticed, because every time Toriel called Asgore, or some other friend of the family, to sit with you while she took care of other matters, you could see his face fall. Toriel was very gentle with both of you, never yelling or even scolding you for the plan, but you could tell she didn't trust either of you anymore. After all, the last time the two of you were left to your own devices, you had done...this.

Didn't make it hurt any less.

Weeks pass as you get your strength back. Without anymore buttercups, your body is finally free to flush itself of the toxins, while Toriel deals with as much of the damage as she can.

(You curse your body sometimes. Millions and millions of years of evolution have honed it to fight death however it could, every individual cell shouting _I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die._

You wonder if monsters have something like that, with their magical bodies. You are a hivemind of trillions and trillions of cells, and your mind a dictator demanding them to die while all they do is keep on fighting.)

She’s too cautious to do anything invasive, though. Without knowing what the inside of a human’s throat and stomach look like, trying to heal them could end in something unexpected happening instead.

Her partial healing leaves you with the odd sensation of your mouth feeling mostly okay, only to have the problems start at your collar. You might start eating some hot soup, something to give you the energy to heal, and feel perfectly fine putting the spoon in your mouth, only to suddenly feel searing pain as soon as it reaches your throat.

...everything hurt

You were doing better than before, much better, but everything hurt anyway.

Right now, you were doing your “homework”, and it felt like your entire body was on fire, but you still had another hour left before it would be okay for you to leave.

It wasn't homework in the conventional way, no math worksheets or reading assignments or essays to write. There had been plenty of that too, back before you fell ill - Toriel had taken a very involved role in your education - but all of that had been halted as soon as it became clear that you had very little spare energy to focus on anything beyond staying alive.

There was homework, and there was “homework”. Sit in the sunlight for a few hours a day, eat a slice of snail pie with dinner, chew on some of the roots she gives you in the morning and at bedtime, drinking the sap. Even more so, the weaker and weaker you had become

Toriel said humans who ate nothing but monster food, or who lived in darkness for too long, always got very sick and always eventually wasted away and died. You said it was probably because they hadn't been getting enough vitamins and minerals, but she had just looked at you as if you were speaking in another language. Monsters simply didn’t need to worry about these things, and it mystified her.

Regardless of whether she understood why or not, Toriel still knew sunlight was important and still made you sit in the garden. You were still too weak to walk around too much on your own, so she had carried you here, lay you down on a blanket with several pillows to cushion you, and left you with your latest unfinished knitting project while she left to go run errands.

You weren’t alone, though; Asgore was here too, quietly gardening while you sat in the sun and (tried to, at least) knit.

Large chunks of the garden had been uprooted, and it was much more bare than it had been before. Upon learning that you had used buttercups to hurt yourself, Asgore immediately dug them all up and disposed of them.

You let go of your needles and reach out to brush your hand against the bare dirt. It isn't much darker than your own brown skin, and the thought immediately makes you want to scratch, scratch, scratch, until it all falls off and you don't feel so ugly anymore.

It can't hurt much more than you already do. You slump back into the pillows and stare at the cavern ceiling.

Asgore seems to notice, because he puts down the watering can, gets up, and walks over to you, crouching by your side. He looks worried, you think idly.

“Chara? Are you alright?”

You just take one of the pillows and cover your face with it. He doesn't force you to pull it off, but he pats your hand once. It's all you can do to stop yourself from yanking it away immediately.

“Are you in pain? I can call Tori - “

“No,” you mumble, lying. “I'm fine.”

Asgore doesn't question you further, but he doesn't leave your side, either. The two of you sit in awkward silence, until you finally crack and ask something that's been on your mind.

“Aren't you mad at me?”

“Mad?” He repeats the word as if he doesn't understand. You would have to explain, then, even though you had no idea why he couldn't see it.

“Mad. That I ruined your garden, and I take up so much space, and…” You were about to say more, but a coughing fit interrupts you, lighting your entire body on fire. He finally lifts the pillow off of your face to give you room to breathe, and gives you a kind look.

“Of course I am not upset with you, Chara. You're more important than any flowers ever could be.” He's smiling at you gently, and that hurts even more than your coughing fit, somehow.

You curl up a little, and he seems to take that as a cue to continue speaking.

“The garden was getting too monochrome anyway,” he jokes. “It leaves room for some new flowers. We can pick some out together later, if you like.”

When you don't answer, his voice gets a little quieter and a little gentler.

“Chara, how could I be mad?” You open your mouth, but he interrupts you before you could even begin. “You had good intentions. You've always had nothing but good intentions. I'm mad at myself for not having realized sooner.”

That catches your attention.

“What? Wh - “

“I became ill before, and I spend so much time in the garden. I should have noticed when flowers began to go missing.”

You look up at him, eyes wide and mouth in an ‘o’ shape. This wasn't what you were expected to hear at all, and it didn't make any sense, what was he saying?

“What do you mean? Of course it isn't your fault, it's _mine,_ it's always mine, I'm even the reason you got ill, because I _poisoned_ you, I - “

“Chara.” You stop. “It's alright. You didn't mean to. You just wanted to make a pie, how could I be angry with you for that?”

What are you supposed to say to that?

So you don't say anything at all; your chest hurts too much anyway. You just grab the pillow from where Asgore had placed it and cover your face again.

He seems to sense that you're not ready to talk again, and doesn't push you. He's being too nice, he's always been too nice, he kept you around when you fell instead of killing you like he _should_ have, because then this could've all been over with and monsterkind could've been free and he wouldn't have ever needed to uproot his flowers just because some brat he took in ate them.

You don’t even notice you’re crying until he takes the pillow off again to offer you his handkerchief. You look up at him, eyes wide, and seeing how kind he is, how there’s not a single trace of anger or disgust or, or, or _anything_ , and you even started crying on one of his family’s pillows and he _still_ isn’t getting mad at all, and you’ve done such a good job up until now of not showing just how pathetic you were to the Dreemurrs, but right now you can’t stop the tears from rolling down your cheeks.

He doesn't act with you the way he does with Asriel, and you're grateful for that. It would’ve just made everything worse, for him to say anything, but he just holds out the handkerchief for you to take it. But, but all you’d do is get snot all over it the way you did the pillow, and he knows that, and it just makes the tears fall harder.

Why can’t you stop crying?

You shudder and all it does is make the pain in your chest worse and worse and worse, and he doesn’t stop you from covering your face with the pillow again. Maybe if you hold it down hard enough you’ll even suffocate, but you just don’t hand enough strength in your limbs. You’re weak again, as always, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and -

You try to stand up because you want to run, run, run, run, you don’t know where but that doesn’t matter right now, except you try to stand up and collapse before you can even get to your feet because your stupid _goddamn_ body is too weak to run and too strong to die.

You feel a hand on your back, and then you're being gently picked up and placed back onto the blanket, the pillows moved back into place to cushion you properly. It's only now that you become aware that Asgore is saying your name.

“ - Chara? Chara, I'm so sorry.” You feel like you're dying, but you're _not_ dying, and you hate it, you hate it, you hate it. He had been giving you some space earlier, but now he just wipes your face for you. No one has ever done anything like this for you in your entire _life_ and it just makes you hiccup. You're in so, so much pain.

He's still talking.

“I didn't mean to overwhelm you, child. We don't need to take about anything you don't want to.”

He's so nice. He's so, so nice. Your face is covered in tears and snot and you're so ugly, and he's still so nice.

“I-I’m s-sorry…I r-ruin everything…”

“Chara…It's alright. You're just a child. You're allowed to just be a child.”

And children were always supposed to do what they were told, not make a fuss, serve their elders, and anything less wasn't good enough, and -

“Children make mistakes. You're allowed to make mistakes, and it's our job to take care of you.” You look up at him, eyes wide. “I don't know what happened, Chara, and you don't have to tell me, but it's okay. You're okay.”

He doesn't say anything else after that, just gently strokes your hair and lets you cry yourself out.

After a long while, you ask,

“A-Asgore?”

“Yes, Chara?”

“Can we really look at flowers later? F-for your garden?”

“Of course. I promise.”

“Th. Thank you.”

“It is no trouble at all, my child.”

**Author's Note:**

> small note: chara's afghan and has brown skin, so them comparing their skin to soil is a testament to how dark they are, not how light the dirt is.
> 
> chara is still recovering from the buttercup poisoning. it damaged their digestive tract a great deal and they have a lot of pain in their abdomen, as well as cold flashes, becoming easily lightheaded, nausea, etc etc etc. the most relevant thing for this fic is the pain


End file.
